sermons ought to be filled up with these invitations. What language can be plainer? what meaning have they, if they do not mean what they say? If these are not free invitations they are cruel taunts; if they will not apply to all, they will apply to none. Take them then, freely as they are offered, for the sake of Him who bought the inheritance to which they summons you. Let the criminal of deepest dye take them, for they are meant for him; let the thief, the outcast, the beggar on the dunghill take them, for they are meant for them. And if any self-righte ous Pharisee shall say to them "these are not for you," let them cry, "Liar, stand off, and bring not thy recreant shadow between me and my Saviour!"

"Who has surveyed the sacred roll,

And found my name not written there?"

It may be true that your sins cry out for vengeance-it may be true that you have sinned against God with a high hand and a stretched-out arm-it may be true that you have wandered from the green pastures of His fold; but it is truer still, it is a more faithful saying, and more worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and if you only trust Him, "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; and though red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

I have left myself no time to point you to the blue sky which shall be your heritage, if you will but come to this fountain. Your heart is red with sin; make it white in the blood of Christ, and in the white robes which He has washed for you you shall enter the bright and holy city beyond that bright blue sky above your head. If we should meet each other some day before the throne of God, all of us made kings and priests before Him, all clothed with holiness, and freed from sin, all rich, with no more poverty and no more pain, whatever severe critics may think of these rough, uncouth remarks, it will not be all in vain that we have talked together in this room to-day about Red, White, and Blue.

Silence in Court!

A LECTURE

BY THE REV. A. MURSELL,

IN THE

FREE TRADE HALL, JANUARY 17TH, 1858

THE exclamation which forms our subject is generally uttered from the indignant lips of policemen, to the refractory mob in the gallery of Mr. Maude's court. When people are particularly excited, however, they will make a noise, so the injunction has often to be enforced by a tap on the head, or a poke in the ribs, from No. 47 B, who stands sentinel in front of the gallery, in order to enforce decorum.

There is a sort of mysterious poesy about silence, whether in a court, in a cathedral, or anywhere else, that seems to be inseparable from a white stick with a gilt top. I have no doubt that if there is any one present now, who has had the curiosity to go and watch the proceedings in our city police court, they will have noticed that the gentleman appointed to keep order in front of the gallery already referred to, carries a long stick, that was once white, and, I have no doubt, had once a gilt end, but which has been poked into so many greasy waistcoats, and rubbed upon so many bristly heads, that all the gilt has been rubbed off, and the white has long ago been done brown. Go into a cathedral at service time, and the beadle is sure to be strutting about the aisles with one of these white-and-gilt sticks. I remember, when I was a very little boy, going into Westminster Abbey, during the chaunting of the prayers, and, being rather more mischievous than devotional, I amused myself by sticking a pin into my elder brother's leg, who was sitting next me. He endured the infliction till flesh and blood could stand it no longer, and then sung out so lustily, that the beadle, who thought it was me, came rushing up, and having first of all

a

given me a desperate rap on the head to bring me to myself, he seized me by the collar of my coat and brought me to himself. As I resisted all the while, he was compelled to carry me by," leg and a wing," as poulterers say, that is, to seize me by one leg and one arm, and carry me out to the door. As he was carrying me in this fashion out of the chancel, and through the far-famed poet's corner, I pinched him viciously in the calf of his great fat leg, which was enveloped in a large white stocking. This caused him to drop me to the ground with a crash. He put me on my feet, and took hold of my shoulders and pushed me on before him, assisting my progress very materially by frequent applications of his knee to my person. He took me out into the yard, and out of hearing of the people in the church, and then opened a door which led into a little damp, mouldy stone room, to which we had to descend five or six steps. Here he proceeded to avenge himself of my obstinacy. He sat down upon a stone ledge in the wall, where some old confessor had very likely sat some centuries before, to hear the story of some penitent who wanted absolution for stealing a pick-axe, or for some equally heinous offence. The only difference between my case and that of the penitent was, that, doubtless, he had to pay seven shillings and sixpence for his absolution from the confessor, whereas I got mine from the beadle for nothing. O, he was a great fat man, that beadle! I think I see him now, sitting on that stone ledge, all panting and perspiring with righteous indignation, his great plush waistcoat rising and falling with his deep emotion, and his double chin almost pallid with rage. He had his white wand of office with him, with its gilt top, and he grasped me by one hand, and this wand in the other. I was only a little fellow of about seven years old, with a little frock and belt on, and a pair of very diminutive white trousers, which came down to my knees and showed a very red and chubby bare leg below the frills which skirted their edges. But little as I was, I had the spirit of a little tiger, and seizing the long stick, I snapped it through the middle. My opponent, however, was too big for the struggle to be a very long one. He soon got both my little wrists clasped together behind my back in one of his great ugly hands, and clutched me tight between his huge gouty knees, so that I could not move; he bent me down with my head under his arm, and laid the broken end of his white stick across my back and ribs, till I shrieked again for mercy. He did not let me go till he had beaten me most cruelly; and I never see a beadle to this day but I long to kick his shins and be revenged upon him.

I really did not mean to be betrayed into the relation of this incident in my own personal experience, which, by the bye, has nothing on earth to do with the subject before us, but it all rose out of the white-and-gilt stick, and I did not know where I was till I found myself in the middle of it.

"Silence in Court!" How often is that silence the prelude to the wail of a broken heart, or to the cry of the orphaned child. The trial has lasted many weary hours-yesterday, and to-day, has that grey head been bent forward over the dock, to catch the answers of the witnesses; and, hour by hour, has the bloodshot eye been strained to scrutinize the faces of the jury as they sit within their pew. Grave men, with gowns and wigs, and pompous voices, have been talking glibly about the "prisoner at the bar;" and often has the ermined judge, upon the bench, yawned in uneasy restlessness. But there is one pale looker-on who has never yawned, and whose frightful, greedy interest has never once relaxed. Dry documents and parchments have been read in humdrum tones by the clerk, but still that bright dilated eye has never drooped, those dry and parted lips have never moved. Each word has been drunk in with greedy appetite. Sometimes it has been gulped like nectar down the burning throat of the thirsty traveller, at others it has been swallowed like forked fire, just in proportion as the evidence has told for or against her poor old father in the dock-for this is his daughter sitting amongst the crowd in the gallery. She wants no policeman with a wand to keep her quiet; her's is the deathlike agony of suspense, when even the heart is afraid to beat, and the quick returning breath disturbs with its own whispers. The judge has closed his summing up, and the jury have gone out, and all is clamour and buzz throughout the court. One fellow, sitting. near the spell-bound girl, offers to lay heavy odds that the old chap will get transported; another roysteringly states it as his opinion that the old blade is no better than he should be, from which it is to be inferred, of course, that the gentleman who makes the remark is a great deal better than he need be, and has a superabundance of piety perfectly divine. Heartless and unfeeling jokes are cut by empty-headed and hollow-hearted spectators, and lank-jawed, lantern-faced barristers suck oranges and read the papers. Perhaps there is but one poor fluttering fevered heart, in all that crowded court, that is swollen almost to bursting; but God only knows the agony of suspense and anguish that is centred here in this poor girl's bosom. Hark! the door is opened, and the jury, one by one, come trooping into court. The foreman looks portentous and important; but

his face gives no clue to what is on his lips. "Silence in Court!" "Gentlemen, are you all agreed upon your verdict?" "We are." "How say you, gentlemen, do you find the prisoner guilty, or not guilty?" "Guilty!" What! nothing more? No relenting plea for mercy, on the ground of poverty, or hunger, or the sore temptation? O, Mr. Foreman, if poverty or want will not plead as an excuse, for pity's sake look here at this wild face; it might surely plead for mercy! No. "Guilty" is the verdict, and nothing more. The judge has but a few words to say, and they finish up with the words " beyond the seas for the term of your natural life!" O, what a wail of deep despair bursts from the daughter's frantic lips as she sees the hoary hairs of her lost father vanish, like the setting sun of hope, for ever from her view! Farewell the glowing fireside of home, with all its little joys and sunbeams! Farewell the happy, happy hours when they shared the crust of poverty together! and when these raven tresses, and those silver locks were intertwined together, as she pillowed her head upon her father's shoulder! Farewell the days and nights of honest toil, when all their hearts' desire was to hunger and thirst, and live and die together! This was the burden of that piercing cry that burst from her broken heart, as ruin and dishonour stared her in the face, left friendless, homeless in the cold and cruel world. "Silence in the Court! Take that woman out!" This little sketch-not very far from nature, I fear-may help to pave the way for the spiritual use which in the rest of this afternoon's remarks I shall try to make of the subject.

When the following sentences were uttered, they were founded on the words, "There was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour," and in transferring our silent court from earth to heaven, I must ask you to try and keep these words in mind.

The interpretations which have been put upon the precise significance of the seven seals, and the seven vials of apocalyptic vision, are so various and discordant, that we do not propose to venture to attempt to unravel that which has perplexed wise and learned men in all time. But, although these words occur in immediate connection with the opening of one of the seals, there is enough that is suggestive in the words themselves, apart from their association, to arrest our minds for a few minutes this afternoon, by appealing to our imagination and our hearts.

It is almost impossible for us, with our small capacity and earthly notions, to derive any definite conceptions of heaven. We know nothing, so to speak, of its internal economy; whatever we know of it or whatever conception we have of it, is